Brendan O'Carroll has claimed that he has no idea why Mrs Brown's Boys continues to be such a success, but he did claim that every storyline carries a ring of truth to it.
The hit comedy, which returns for a sixth season to RTÉ television next week, will show O'Carroll's titular character Agnes Brown trying to manage her family in a hugely modernising world. Among the highlights of her new series, will see Agnes hijack her daughter Cathy's podcast, as well Grandad announcing plans to move himself into a care home.
Other highlights include Agnes attempting to teach her close friend Winnie how to drive, bring inevitably hilarious consequences.
Despite the fact that the show is still going strong, fourteen years after it first aired, Brendan O'Carroll remains at a loss to explain why.
“I honestly don’t know the secret to the enduring success of Mrs Brown’s Boys,” he said. “I write and perform what I think is funny and just hope that somebody somewhere watching gets a laugh out of it".
O'Carroll did also state that despite its comedy appeal, many of the storylines are based and real life events.
“The ideas for these episodes are no different from the previous 53 episodes,” he said. “Believe it or not, most of the storylines are based on true events that either happened to my family or have been told to me by people about their families'.
“Everybody has a story, and it’s quite common for someone in a family to say in the middle of a family disaster, ‘This is like an episode of Mrs Brown’s Boys’".
Previously, O'Carroll had said that the character Agnes was inspired by her own sharp witted, salt to the earth mother Maureen, who worked on the market stalls on Dublin's Moore Street.
The idea was first created by O'Carroll in 1992 after he set up a theatre company with family members, where they decided to tour the country with stage plays, before eventually creating the TV phenomenon we know today.
“I love being Agnes. I’m not lying when I say I could not play any of the characters better than the actors who play them now", O'Carroll said. “So many times, at the end of rehearsals for a particular episode, our director Ben Kellett will say, ‘All this needs now is the audience’ and he is so right,".
He added: “They follow every move, every line and add so much to our performances. We would be lost without them".
Back in 2023, Brendan O'Carroll said that the show helps to take people's minds off their problems. More on this here.
